The Wedding Story: Capture Creative and Authentic Photos

Lesson 42 of 56

Landscape Images in Lightroom

The Wedding Story: Capture Creative and Authentic Photos

Lesson 42 of 56

Landscape Images in Lightroom

Lesson Info

Landscape Images in Lightroom

Now we've moved on to more landscape photos and the present that we use for that is called Hyder. It's generally a preset we like to use in color and it pushes the contrast more. Pulls the blacks, increase the vibrance, increase the saturation. Really ideal for landscape images to go ahead and get more of those bold colors in the image. Something like this we actually don't need to do any dodging because we want the couple to stay in a silhouette, so we don't need to bring them out any further. The only adjustment that I'm making is maybe a little bit more contrast. We could take our punch brush and pass it over the sky and the water just to go ahead and give it a little bit more texture. The challenge here is we don't wanna create this halo effect around our bride and groom. I'm just gonna go ahead and erase it ever so slightly, try to blend it in a little bit more. Moving on, so again a landscape photo, take our Hyder preset, really gives us bold colors. Right now it's a little bit t...

oo blue simply because our white balance is a little bit off, so go ahead and make the image a little bit warmer. We want that play of, you know, blues and purples, as it was in real life. Adjust our tint so the image is a little less green. Adjust our exposure, looking at the highlights, in this case in the sky. Give it a little more contrast. And then the final work is done with the dodge brush so bring out the groom a little bit more as well as the texture on the rocks. We'll straighten the horizon, 'cause it's just a little bit crooked. And final step, we'll take our punch brush and pass it over the landscape of the photo. As you saw before, when I started applying it, it was a little bit too strong and it was making a bit of a, you know, stark change to the image. So one way to control that is simply with the flow of the brush, which is one of the settings. So the higher you go the more it's gonna apply that brush and if you reduce it, then it's gonna apply a little bit less of it. So we're gonna go ahead and just lower the flow down to the 20s and apply that brush and now it looks a lot more natural. My apologies, I always forget how to get rid of those settings.
I think it's shift.
There we go. Alright, so Hyder preset. Again it's good for landscapes but it's also good for images where we do wanna bring out a lot of the color. It's gonna really, just in the HSL settings it pushes a lot of the color channels. So it's gonna make the wall a lot more yellow and bring out the color in the chandelier. Once we apply the preset we'll just adjust our exposure, adjust our contrast, pull the highlights a little bit down to retain, to not make this spot so bright behind her hands and push the shadows ever so slightly. Take our dodge brush and pass it over the brides hands so that those come out a little bit more. As I'm doing this I realize I didn't quite fix the white balance. I definitely wanna set the white balance for the daylight here, whereas the camera as shot decided to go for the tungsten light, which is normal. So we'll go ahead and adjust that, make it a little more pink, a little less yellow, just kinda find the right white balance for the brides arms. Again big landscape, Hyder preset is perfect for that. I'll go ahead and center everything and also get rid of some of the, some of the bushes down here. We definitely don't want that distraction. Go ahead and crop it in. Adjustments to make here is to bring down our exposure, add a little more contrast, maybe pull our highlights to get a little more detail in the sky and then take our dodge brush and pass it over our subjects. Re-increase our flow so that it does actually apply the adjustment brush I'm trying to do. And here I'm gonna pass it over the entire bottom part of the frame because I do wanna bring the tones out a little bit more. I do wanna bring out the tones a little bit more in the sand dunes so that it's not just a circle of light around the bride and groom. That's really important when editing, is to make sure that we're never tracing the subject and that we keep the dodging as natural as possible. Moving on, the Hyder present, which we use on our environmental photos, is also good for bold and vibrant images on the dance floor. What that does is again, really brings out a lot of the color, it gives it more contrast. When we're not bouncing our flash and just using ambient light this is a really good preset to use. Go ahead and crop so that our singer here is in one of the thirds. Again it doesn't have to be perfectly cropped in camera, use the crop tool in your editing because it's there for that. Bring down our exposure, pull the highlights just a tiny bit Give it a little more contrast for more color and then take our dodge brush to bring out the main subject, so here it's really the singers in the background, that's where we want the viewer to look at and then look at the girl in the foreground. Here our dodging is not quite enough so we'll go ahead and give it a little bit more with the exposure. And last step, take our punch brush and pass it over the landscape of the photo to give it more color and more contrast. Last image with this preset. Again back to a landscape photo. Let's go ahead and crop it and straighten it. Adjust our white balance to get really nice tones in the sky. Find the right balance of greens and pinks in the tint. And then final steps are with the dodge adjustment brush on the bride and groom. Maybe lower the saturation just a tiny bit on the adjustment brush so that the couple isn't so colorful. We can even adjust the white balance on the adjustment brush specifically to make them a little bit less pink, so they're more neutral. And if we want more color and texture out of the background take our punch and really pass it over the sky and the rocks.

Class Description

Wedding Photography is a hard and sometimes exhausting business. Finding ways to stay creative while continuing to capture timeless and classic imagery is important. Drawing from their own life experiences, Davina and Daniel Kudish capture the subtle nuances of their client's life stories at every wedding. In this course, they’ll discuss techniques to personalize each individual wedding to capture the stories and moments that make each couple unique.

Utilize what you know about each couple to help approach capturing the day

Research and location scouting techniques

Capture the details that matter most

How to work with various lighting situations

Preserve the mood and capture natural moments

Composition and Framing

Shooting with variety

Create personal and creative portraits

Edit a slideshow and how to create an album

Davina and Daniel are known for capturing creative portraits and important moments that tell every unique love story. Join them to learn how to implement their formula to find and capture the creative story with every client.

a Creativelive Student

Holy Moly! I have been very familiar with Davina & Daniel for several years and I also work closely with Image Salon for the past 3 years. I loved their relatability, raw honesty, human connection, and their teaching method. It was also super helpful to see the GoPro footage on a real wedding day and walk through their thought process with them. A refreshing wind of inspiration has now flooded my mind and attitude. I am excited to begin my 8th year of weddings with a clear mind and full heart. These two are the REAL deal and I am so happy I made this investment. Thanks, CL for always bringing the BEST of the BEST.

a Creativelive Student

I’ve been following Davina and Daniel’s work for years and suffice it to say, they are in my top 6 all time favorites. I was so excited to watch this creative live and it didn’t disappoint. From their approach to shooting through the moments, to their stunning locales and minimalist gear, there is something for everyone in this class. Both Daniel and Davina have a tremendous knowledge of photography and their willingness to share and educate is second to none. Oh, and just so you know, they are also the nicest people on the planet. Super sweet, amazingly talented. Thanks for having them on.

a Creativelive Student

Davina and Daniel are fantastic presenters as well as an exceptional photo team (plus they are super nice people, too!).
I love their approach and methods and felt like there is so much value in this course.
Even though I've been photographing for a long time, I took away a lot of great value gems from their course and look forward to applying several to my own business!